īy April 2009, most commercial games, GameCube and Wii alike, could be fully played, albeit with minor problems and errors, with a large number of games running with few or no defects. Shortly after, almost all versions of the Wii system software became bootable. The Wii's close architectural relation to GameCube made it backwards-compatibleĪs of February 2009, the software was able to successfully boot and run the official Wii System Menu v1.0. As with previous builds, differences between consecutive builds are typically minor. The preview builds and unofficial SVN builds were released with their revision number (e.g., RXXXX) rather than version numbers (e.g., 1.03). At this point, the emulator had basic Wii emulation implemented, limited Linux compatibility and a new GUI using wxWidgets. Open source, Wii emulation, and 2.0 release (2008–2010) ĭolphin became an open-source project on 13 July 2008 when the developers released the source code publicly on a SVN repository on Google Code under the GNU General Public License v2 (GPLv2). The developers later revived the project in October 2005. ĭolphin was officially discontinued temporarily in December 2004, with the developers releasing version 1.01 as the final version of the emulator. Its name refers to the development code name for the GameCube. Many games crashed on start up or barely ran at all average speed was from 2 to 20 frames per second (FPS). Audio was not yet emulated, and there were performance issues. 1.5 Drop of legacy technologies, accuracy improvements, and 5.0 release (2013–2016)ĭolphin was first released in September 2003 by programmers Henrik Rydgård (ector) and F|RES as an experimental Nintendo GameCube emulator that could boot up and run commercial games.1.4 Port to Android and 4.0 release (2013).As mobile hardware got more powerful over the years, running Dolphin on Android became a viable option.ĭolphin has been well received in the IT and video gaming media for its high compatibility, steady development progress, the number of available features, and the ability to play games with graphical improvements over the original consoles. Soon after, the emulator was ported to Linux and macOS. After troubled development in the first years, Dolphin became free and open-source software and subsequently gained support for Wii emulation. Dolphin was the first GameCube emulator to successfully run commercial games. It had its inaugural release in 2003 as freeware for Windows. GNU General Public License version 2+ ĭolphin is a free and open-source video game console emulator for the GameCube and Wii that runs on Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android.

Mac dolphin emulator games